


work out your own salvation

by staranise



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Confessional, Coptic Christianity, Crusader-era, Deradicalization, Gen, background Joe/Nicky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25838602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/staranise
Summary: He’d somehow imagined leaving Christian lands behind would put him beyond the reach of the Church entirely. This was like not being able to truly die; he thought he’d excommunicated himself, but here was his religion, like an unquiet ghost, back to claim him again.Two days after they reach Tunis, Yusuf offers his new and obviously-troubled lover the services of a priest. After all, his mother brought Christian servants with her from Egypt when she married, and they know where to find one.There's... a bit of culture shock.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 100





	work out your own salvation

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here on Tumblr](https://with-my-murder-flute.tumblr.com/post/626135617994096640/it-turned-out-that-yusuf-hadnt-been-quite-as).
> 
> This might be continued? Might not? I can't tell what my own brain is doing lately. Sorry.

It turned out that Yusuf hadn’t been quite as asleep as Nicolò had thought, or the tears and the sleeplessness weren't washed away so easily, because two days after they reached Tunis Yusuf took his hand and said, “Wanting you priest?”

His meaning was so completely opaque to Nicolò that Yusuf had to say it three times, had to try different words, to bring up the Christian servant from his kitchen and have her show Nicolò her cross, to pantomime a man coming in the door, before he understood that Yusuf was offering to _bring a priest to see him_. 

“Yes,” Nicolò said mechanically, the way you might consent to being ripped in half. Where on Earth would such a priest come from? _Were_ there priests here? He’d somehow imagined leaving Christian lands behind would put him beyond the reach of the Church entirely. This was like not being able to truly die; he thought he’d excommunicated himself, but here was his religion, like an unquiet ghost, back to claim him again. He looked hard at Yusuf, wondering if he knew what he was proposing, but all he saw in Yusuf’s eyes was concern.

His first confession to Apa Yeshak was... difficult.

The diminutive priest spoke Arabic imperfectly, having lived in a Coptic-speaking town until he was forty. He had procured, somewhere, a Latin-Arabic lexicon, and the sentences he produced in consultation with it were so confused that sometimes Nicolò understood them better in the original Arabic. 

It confused and frustrated Nicolò that the Apa wanted him to confess, but didn’t demand that he translate his confession. They argued over it, haphazardly, struggling in their languages like two men fighting when they had no weapons left except elbows and fists and sheer brute force.

“You don’t know how _bad,”_ he said, his arms spread wide in an attempt to illustrate the enormity of his sin, feeling like he would burst from shame and anger. “ _Maxima_ culpa. Maxima, maxima, _maxima.”_

Apa Yeshak reached out and cupped Nicolò‘s hot face with his cool hands. It was the opposite of a blow.

“Absolvo te,” he said, simply and clearly. God must have given him the words.

Nicolò burst into tears, and the small man gathered him in. The difference in their heights was so awkward, and the need to be held so strong, that Nicolo put down a knee and knelt, weeping into the priest’s breast. Then he submitted to the savage mercy of the priest's reasoning: They were ordered to tell their sins and be forgiven. Nothing else was essential. He agreed to confess, to tell the whole story, in the Ligurian of his upbringing. In doing so he was under orders, Apa Yeshak made it clear, to have faith in God. 

At the end he accepted another absolution and a blessing, which he felt physically even though the words eluded him. Then the Apa called Yusuf in to help translate his penance.

That was... difficult. To see Yusuf return, the centre of the sin it felt like God was leading him into, the person he was sure, if the priest correctly understood him, Apa Yeshak would tell him to forswear. But instead he sat Yusuf down and made it clear among the three of them that Nicolò was to pray, every morning, for guidance; to come to the house the priest lived in every Saturday for the next six weeks, to clean the room they used for Mass; and to walk to and from Mass on Sunday with the kitchen girl Khroustina and make sure she was not harassed in the street.

Oh, and, the priest had added, to crown this all: Nicolò was to improve his Arabic. _Quickly._


End file.
